The golem was getting closer as the officer stayed back. Chainer kept up the pretense that he was focusing on the human officer and letting the limestone golem get close enough to grab him.
Two more steps to go. Chainer reached out for the Mirari, fifty feet and a thick metal door away. This close to it, he could hear its call and feel its power responding to him. It knew him. It was waiting for him.
One more step. Chainer moved slightly to his left. The golem was between himself and the officer.
"Kill him," the officer said.
Now.
Skellum had not been Chainer's first master. A Cabalist warrior named Minat lost most of his sight in the pit near Chainer's village in the salt flats. Chainer was alone, and Minat was bored. He showed Chainer the basics of pit fighting, gave him an unusual weapon to master, and amazed him with tales of the Cabal's power and influence.
He also taught Chainer the death bloom spell. "As a last resort," he had told Chainer, "to be used only when it was absolutely necessary." Minat was long dead, but Chainer remembered him well. And there had never been a more necessary occasion for the death bloom.
The golem reached out for Chainer's arm. Chainer crouched, pushed both arms out straight, and cocked his wrists back as far as they would go. With the Mirari behind him and the dark rage of Deidre's death still hot in his chest, Chainer spoke the words. He had never tried the death bloom on an artificial creature before, but it was his only hope.
A beam of black energy exploded out of Chainer's hands and slammed into the golem's chest. The cracked limestone seemed to soak up the energy, drawing it in like a sponge draws water. Chainer maintained his stance and his focus, pouring more power into the spell. The golem's innards went black, and it started to shudder.
With a roar, Chainer stepped forward and shoved the beam further into the golem's chest. The agonizing screech of ripping stone echoed down the hallway, and the golem exploded.
Driven by the unrelenting power from Chainer's hands, the shards of limestone rocketed backward, away from the vault. At least a dozen embedded themselves in the officer's body like shaft-less arrows. The officer staggered and fell backward. The energy from Chainer's hands withered, and he fell to his knees, blood streaming from his nose and ears.
Chainer shook his head to clear it, wiped the blood from his nose, and stood. He could see that the simian had stopped breathing. One of the Order soldiers was dead and another unconscious with his elbow twisted completely in the wrong direction. The officer was moaning as he lay bleeding. Chainer painfully shuffled over to Deidre.
She was mortally wounded, broken beyond repair. Her arms looked like bags of shattered bone, and she coughed blood. Her legs and her face were undamaged, however, and Chainer watched sadly as all three of her eyes rolled back and forth in her head.
"Don't you dare," Deidre rasped. Dazed, numb, and mute, Chainer stepped forward.
"Don't… waste," Deidre managed. She choked and coughed before continuing. "Don't waste… us." She tried to gesture with her mangled arm and then screamed in pain.
"Don't waste us," she said again. Her eyes were wild, unfocused. She smiled one last time.
Chainer understood. "I won't, big sister."
"Don't…"
Chainer waited for a few silent seconds and then closed Deidre's eyes.
"The Cabal is here," he whispered, and the jolt sent him sprawling backward. Deidre had been so very much alive that converting her savage life into death almost finished Chainer off as well.
He felt better as he picked himself up. Chainer caught his reflection in a mirrored hallway decoration. His tightly rolled braids were all undone and askew. His face was a smear of blood. His eyes were two black holes that glowed with an un-light very similar to the Mirari's.
He glanced at the remaining bodies, and then walked past them to where the officer lay. He, too, was very near the end.
"For Kirtar," he said. "For the Order." Then he died.
"For the First," Chainer's voice was a bitter snarl. "For Deidre. For the Cabal."
Chainer got out the censer and started another disc of incense burning. He left the cage at the mouth of the vault hallway so that the smoke would obscure the entrance. Then he went back and finished what he had promised to Deidre.
Skellum and the First watched the scrying pool. Chainer's smoke did not affect the spell that powered the pool, and his Cabal masters could see him clearly. "You have trained him well, Skellum." "I didn't teach him that, Pater," Skellum said. "It's bad enough that he abandoned the assignment you gave him, but-"
"I have nothing but praise for your student's behavior. He showed initiative. He stood by his family and protected our property."
"But the Order… the tournament. We were going to give the Mirari away as a trophy. Why should he kill to protect it?"
"Because it is my will," the First said. "And you, his master, doubted his abilities. Look at him now."
Skellum was careful to keep his face neutral as he watched. Chainer was moving from body to body, standing over them, absorbing what he could of their dying energy. With each absorption, the black glow from his eyes grew stronger, and the more exaggerated and stylized his movements became.
"He continues to impress," the First said. "He does everything properly and with enthusiasm."
"He's a ghoul, Pater," Skellum said. "I know you think me overcautious, but what he's doing is exactly wrong for a dementist at his level."
"Wrong?" the First asked witheringly. Skellum bowed his head.
"Forgive me, Pater. You are wise and I see little. But I must-"
"You must be silent," the First said. He sat watching Chainer for a few seconds. The youth was casting several chains at once, creating them out of thin air with the dying energies he had just absorbed. He used them to sound the edges of the space he was in, striking sparks off the stone walls and then drawing the chains back into his body. "How like a spider he is," the First muttered, "or a snake with a dozen flickering tongues."
Skellum stood in silence. The figure of Chainer turned on some silent enemy, opened his mouth wide, and sent a barrage of chains lashing out from his fingers. He jerked the chains back and crossed his arms in satisfaction. Whomever or whatever he had been striking at had beat a hasty retreat.
The First stood, and Skellum smoothly backpedaled to get out of his way. "When your student has bled off some of that energy he's holding onto," the First said, "I want you to collect him and take him home. By this time next week, I want him ready for the pits."'
"In his mind, Pater, he's already there." Skellum kept his head bowed, anticipating a rebuke. But the First merely gestured, and one of his hand attendants stepped forward and put a comforting arm on Skellum's shoulder.
"Your concerns have been noted. But you should be proud of what you have accomplished for the Cabal. And of what your student will yet accomplish."
"I am proud, Pater, but I am also afraid."
The First stared down at Skellum through his milky eyes. The barest hint of a smile played with the corners of his mouth.
"Then you are no different from any other father. Come. I suspect the large dragon has been subdued by now, and I've yet to hear the final result of the tournament.
"And then," he added, "we have to make sure the Mirari falls into the most deserving hands we can find."
Both men fell silent as they continued to watch Chainer's lethal dance in the scrying pool, but only the First was smiling. Skellum's eyes were far away and his face slack, as if he were staring at something enormous that only he could see.